CAUGHT NAPPING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9648, 13 November 1909, Page 5

CAUGHT NAPPING.

DARING ROBBERY. ANOTHER KOPENICK INCIDENT. Received November 12, 8.5 a.m. LONDON, November 12. Luedke, formerly a minor clerk in Berlin Provincial Court, Meyer, a cook, and Warnicke, a cyclist, went ""*> to the First Civil Court in Berlin about the hour at which the judges retire. The three intruders donned judges' robes and birettas, which had been stolen from the conference room, and installed themselves at the judges' table. Here they examined the records in the room. Documents showing moneys due to be advanced for litigants' coats were next filled in, and the forms necessary to secure payment were stamped. ( Meanwhile, the attendants enter- | ing, imagining that the judges were conferring, apologised and retired, or were peremptorily ordered to quit. That the fraud was not discovered was due to the multitude of judges and arbitrators about the court, who were all dressed alike. The trio collected a sum equal to two hundred pounds sterling befure the police, who had accidentally got on their track, finally arrived.

The peculiar type of fraud described in the cable message is a variation of the exploit of Wilhelm Voight, a cobbler, who is responsible for the creation of the verb "to Kopenick." Dressed in the uniform of a captain of the Guards, he stopped a corporal and file of soldiers in the street, and ordered them to follow him to the Town Hall of Kopenick, a few miles from Berlin. Here he ordered his men to arrest the Mayor and take him to Berlin, while he produced a forged order and took possession of five thousand marks (about £250) in the town treasury. With this money he disappeared, and he remained undiscovered for several days. Eventually he was arrested and sentenced to four years' impridonment, but he was released after serving absufc a year and a half.